Journeys
The expeditions, reassembled
Every dated label is a diary entry. Read a collector’s labels in order and the voyage comes back: the islands in sequence, the days at each, the specimens from every stop. 6 journeys so far, 1923 to 1962, 1,865 specimens between them.
6 collectors and expeditions138 days in the field21,749 km between stops1,276 photographed specimens
6 journeys match
Ditlev Due Thaanum
10 islands of the United States · May – Aug 1923
Ditlev Due Thaanum across 10 islands of the United States, May – August 1923918 specimens · 15 stops · 96 days · 11,766 km
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Gerrit Parmele Wilder
3 islands of the United States · Jul 1930 – Jun 1931
Gerrit Parmele Wilder in Oʻahu, Laysan and Molokaʻi, July 1930 – June 1931435 specimens · 74 stops · 343 days · 5,041 km
David Timmins Fullaway
Laysan · 1–27 Apr 1923
David Timmins Fullaway in Laysan, 1–27 April 1923142 specimens · 6 stops · 27 days
John W. Beardsley
Laysan and Nihoa · Jun – Jul 1962
John W. Beardsley in Laysan and Nihoa, June – July 1962105 specimens · 6 stops · 31 days · 1,046 km
Stanley Ball
5 islands of the United States · Mar – May 1923
Stanley Ball across 5 islands of the United States, March – May 192372 specimens · 12 stops · 60 days · 3,896 km
George Butler
Laysan · 20–24 Jul 1959
George Butler in Laysan, 20–24 July 1959193 specimens · 2 stops · 5 days
How a journey is found
Every specimen with a full date (year, month and day; a bare “1 January” is treated as a missing day) and a named collector is a diary entry. For each collector the days are read in order, each day given the place most of its labels name. The place where a collector spent more than forty percent of their days, and at least sixty of them, is home: days there are left out.
A gap of more than 21 days between collecting days ends one journey and begins the next. A journey must run five to four hundred days, hold at least forty specimens and touch at least two places. Within it, consecutive days inside the same or a neighbouring tenth-of-a-degree cell (about eleven kilometres) are one stop; the stop’s point is the mean of its labels’ coordinates, or the island’s centre when none carry any.
Companions are collectors whose own labels put them in the same cell on the same days. Staff can name a journey, write about it, feature it or hide it; those words survive every rebuild. Everything else is read off the specimens and rebuilt by harvest.mjs expeditions as the records improve.